Over the next three days, the Star will tell the story of his shooting.

It is a tale of a university student and two teenagers armed with a pistol; of the .22-calibre bullet that fell from Justin’s body to rest at a nurse’s feet; and of the halting court cases and justice delayed.

Based on interviews, trial evidence and police records, the story begins on the afternoon of Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2011. As required by law, the name of the young offender in this story has been changed to protect his identity.

The first few drug deals between Justin Ling-Leblanc and Shawn Peters were uncomplicated and quick.

They exchanged text messages to set the date and time, and Justin drove his silver Honda to pick up Shawn, who was always alone, standing outside the Scarborough apartment building where he lived.

Then the two drove to a quiet spot nearby, Justin handing the 17-year-old an ounce of weed, the teen handing Justin $200. A little small talk and the deal done in five minutes. “Give and go,” Justin called it.

For the fourth and final deal, on Oct. 18, 2011, Shawn changed the meeting place. He wanted four ounces this time. He arrived at the secluded townhouse complex parking lot wearing a puffy winter jacket though it was unseasonably warm that late afternoon. Shawn seemed agitated, rushed.

And this time, the teen was not alone.Justin missed the signs.

The 21-year-old university student had strolled into a world of deceit, disloyalty and sudden violence, and without suspicion.

His Toronto was not the city where kids rob and shoot each other, in public and the light of day.

Justin was a small-time dealer. Most schools and social circles have one. That summer Justin began selling marijuana to close friends and others recommended by those friends. Shawn was one such trusted referral.

So Justin smirked when he saw the little metal weapon in the teen’s right hand. “Is that a BB gun you got? That’s real nice.”

Shawn racked the slide. Click-clack. Justin was unimpressed. “Why do you have a toy gun? Are you gonna pay me?”

“It’s loaded. Gimme the stuff,” Shawn said. “I’m serious.”

Justin was not.

A middle-class life

Sitting in the corner of a Starbucks a year later, Justin raises his head from his study books to greet a reporter, a puckered, pink tracheotomy scar rising above the crewneck of his T-shirt.

He takes a break from preparing for the standardized test he must pass to get into medical school. He tucks his shoulder-length black hair behind his ears, sips his tea and starts at the beginning.

His mother a marketing consultant and father a software consultant, Justin wanted for nothing.

“There were books everywhere around the house. I remember Green Eggs and Ham, Dr. Seuss. I was always reading.”

And using crayons to draw cars. “I thought the more wheels there were on the car, the faster it went. I was drawing these cars with 18 wheels.”

He and his younger sister played fort, preparing for the invasion of imagined enemies.

“Since junior kindergarten, I was always in trouble at school. Always. Talking back to teachers, being too hyper.”

His parents worried about the time he spent playing video games. Role-playing games like Diablo. First-person shooter games like Rainbow 6 and Call of Duty.

“Shooting a guy on the screen, it’s so easy. You push a button, pull the trigger, the person dies, but you know they’re not real. It was fun.”

In all, Justin says, “a typical middle class” life.

Not much is known about Shawn and his 18-year-old friend who showed up at the October 2011 drug deal.

At the time, both had a history of run-ins with police. A court would later hear Shawn was also a dealer, reselling the weed he bought from Justin.

A week after the deal, both would be arrested and charged with trying to murder Justin. One of them pulled the trigger. Prosecutors and judges would try to sort out whom.

During a break in Shawn’s trial at the 311 Jarvis St. youth court, his lawyer wondered why his client’s trial interested a Star reporter.

“Why are you following this case in particular?” the lawyer asked. “They’re a dime a dozen.”

Each year, Toronto police investigate more than 200 shootings that drain justice system and hospital resources.

About 10 per cent are fatal and make headlines. The large majority leave damaged survivors, often unnamed, their ordeals rarely revealed.

Today, the Star begins the story of an armed drug robbery, unremarkable in a city pocked by gun violence but for the improbable trajectory of the bullet, and the young victim who wants the details public.

‘You have an arms race’Judges say gun violence is a “scourge” on this city. They hand down stiff sentences for gun crimes, saying over and again they want to “denounce” the crimes so that others will be “deterred” from doing the same.

It is not working.

Police continue to seize crime guns at a rate of two to three per day, increasingly from teenagers.

In Toronto, where strict laws make gun possession difficult, criminals, especially drug dealers, are willing to pay top dollar for economy brands of semi-automatics.

Criminal defence lawyer Reid Rusonik says some of his clients have a saying that explains why the power of the justice system often proves no match for the draw of a handgun: I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by six.

What this means is drug dealers would rather risk being caught with a gun and face 12 jurors than caught without, killed during a drug rip-off and carried by six pallbearers.

“As we increase sentences for drug offences, we push up the price of drugs, which makes it more lucrative to sell, which makes it more lucrative to rob,” Rusonik said. “And then you have an arms race to prevent the robberies.”

In the parking lot on that sunny October afternoon, Justin — unarmed and flatfooted — made an easy target.

‘Where’s my money?’

Close to 5 p.m., Justin pulled into the Fernways townhouse complex in Scarborough.

He backed into one of the parking spaces in the visitors lot. Behind his Honda, two leafy trees and a patch of grass. Several metres in front, a bush, some boulders and three green dumpsters. “To me it seemed like a reasonable place because it was closed off” from view, Justin recalled.

With Shawn sitting in the passenger seat, Justin handed him two Ziploc bags containing the four ounces of weed — earlier that day he measured the amount using a digital scale — and waited for Shawn to pass him $800 cash.

Shawn glanced at the two baggies and claimed he’d been shorted. “This is not enough,” he said. “You screwed me over.”

“You go to a store and people are nice to you, want to help you out,” he later explained. “I tried to implement that standard as a dealer. Professionalism.”

Justin offered to get a couple more grams from a stash in his trunk, hoping that would satisfy Shawn.

Justin got out of the car but balked, “thinking this is not a good place” to take out a bag of weed and start breaking off small pieces. A passerby might see and call police. He returned to the driver’s seat empty-handed.

Justin was mid-sentence, saying another time and place would be best, when he saw the weapon in Shawn’s right hand.

“I’ve seen guns in movies. I’ve seen ’em in video games. The barrel was kind of smaller than what you’d see in a movie,” Justin later testified. “I didn’t think it was real.”

Shawn pointed the weapon at Justin. “Gimme the stuff,” Shawn said again. Justin looked down the barrel.

Shawn “didn’t seem like the kind of person who would be doing this. I was confused.”

Justin went back to the trunk, Shawn meeting him at the rear of the Honda.

Justin lost track of the BB gun — maybe it was in Shawn’s pocket or backpack. He wanted his $800. Irritated, he decided he was not going to give away more weed and closed the trunk. “Where’s my money?” Justin said.

At first Justin thought the young man was a passerby, and started to answer his question.

Then he noticed the two teens standing side by side and said, “Do you guys know each other?”

Justin later testified that at this point, “It clicked: This is a set-up. This is a robbery. This sucks.”

Wanting out of the parking lot and his losses cut, Justin turned and walked to his car.

Daquan followed, saying “Give me your f---ing phone.”

Justin got in his car, put the key in the ignition. Daquan grabbed at Justin through the open window.

The two grappled. Something hard and metallic in his hand, Daquan whipped Justin in the left temple, the object feeling to Justin like it was made of moving, rattling parts. The BB gun, maybe.

From the passenger side, Shawn reached in, plucked Justin’s car key from the ignition and threw it toward the trees.

“Now they had all the time in the world,” Justin later testified.

Daquan yanked Justin out of his car.

The two were now upright, between the Honda and another parked car, a gauntlet. “Close quarters,” Justin testified. “Hand to hand.”

Justin boxed a little at a gym near York University, where he was in his final year of a psychology degree. He’d been knocked down a few times but could always deconstruct his opponent’s punch, understand the opening he’d left.

This was different.

Justin was on his butt, marvelling at how hard he was hit and quickly sent to ground.

“I got floored. I thought: Damn, he hits hard.”Justin saw blood on his ripped T-shirt and pants and with his fingers gently explored his face, thinking maybe he was punched in the nose.

“I wasn’t really hurting anywhere.”

Justin looked around, saw Shawn and his friend running away, turned his head and saw a young woman pushing a stroller. He smelled something smoky in the air.